The Research On Threshold Effect Of Technological Progress On Industrial Energy Intensity

With the rapid development of social economy, the increasingly severe energy problem has seriously restricted the sustainable development of economy. Technological progress can be improved by improving the existing equipment, promoting the economic and sustainable development of the new technology to save energy input and reduce energy intensity. Industrial sector is the largest sector of technology investment, while energy consumption accounts for 70% of China's energy consumption. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study how to reduce the energy intensity of the industry by raising the level of technology.This paper mainly studies the threshold effect of technology progress on industrial energy intensity from two aspects:the qualitative and quantitative aspects. First, it sorts and analyzes the existing related literature systematically, which lays the foundation for the research of this paper. Secondly, the paper defines the concepts of industrial energy intensity and technology progress which is to be studied, and analyzes the current situation of the development of China's technological progress and energy intensity. And on the basis of that, it analyzes the mechanism that how technological progress reduces energy intensity, and also the threshold differences of the technological progress's effect on industrial energy intensity. It provides theoretical support for the follow-up study. Again, the article collects the industry panel data of the industrial sub-sectors in China from 2002 to 2013. It measures industrial industry total factor productivity with DEA-Malmquist index method, which serves as the indicators of technological progress. It builds the threshold effect model of technical progress on industrial energy intensity, and further analyzes the differences of technological progress'effect on energy intensity when FDI entry degree, the level of R&D and human capital investment level are different.The results show that technological progress has a significant threshold effect on industrial energy intensity. When the level of FDI entry, R&D level and human capital are at a lower level, the improvement of technology level can reduce the intensity of industrial energy. When FDI entry degree and the level of R&D are at a high level, technological progress also obviously reduced the energy intensity, but its inhibitory effect on energy intensity weakened; And when improving the level of human capital, the negative inhibitory effect of technology progress on energy intensity has been enhanced.According to the above research, from the aspects of the rational introduction of technology, support of independent innovation and the human capital accumulation, the paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations to improve the technical level, promote technological progress, so as to reduce the energy intensity.